Brodie, William

- Brodie was a respectable businessman, member of the burgh council and deacon (or president) of the Incorporation of Wrights and Masons.

- Brodie became a burglar and thief. He used his daytime job as a way to gain knowledge about the security mechanisms of his clients and to copy their keys using wax impressions.

1768 - He reputedly began his criminal career, when he copied keys to a bank door and stole £800.

1786 - He recruited a gang of three thieves, Brown, Smith and Ainslie.

- He organised an armed raid on an Excise office in Chessel's Court on the Canongate. Brodie's plan failed and Ainslie was captured.

- The trial started on the 27th of August. At first there was no hard evidence against Brodie before the tools of his criminal trade were found in his house; copied keys, a disguise and pistols. The jury found Brodie and his henchman George Smith, a grocer, guilty. Smith was an English locksmith, he was responsible for a number of thefts, even stealing the silver mace from the University of Edinburgh.

1788 - Brodie and Smith were hanged at the Tolbooth on the 1st of October, using a gallows Brodie had designed and funded the year before.

- Deacon Brodie is commemorated by a pub of that name on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, on the corner between the Lawnmarket and Bank Street which leads down to The Mound, and a close (or alleyway) off the Royal Mile has been named after him, there is also a pub in Ward Road, Dundee named after him.